Death in Veracruz by Hector Camín

could answer he hastened to add: “I really don’t know how to thank you, brother. Anabela told me all about Mexico City.”
    He sounded ambiguous, and he paused for what to me felt like an eternity. Then he added, “I’m really grateful for the way you looked after her. You know how I have Anabela shut in looking after kids and keeping house all day. Thanks for taking her to the opera. And she loved the Museum of Modern Art.”
    It was my turn to be caught short. Finally I managed tosay, “She liked the paintings, but that’s not what I called you about. I already told you why I called.”
    â€œYou didn’t beat around the bush, brother. Say no more.”
    â€œI’m going to look into the way land is distributed in Chicontepec.”
    â€œPerfect,” Rojano replied.
    â€œAnd if it’s not the way you say it is, I’ll make you pay for it in the column. Agreed?”
    â€œSigned, sealed and delivered, brother. You can’t imagine what you’re going to find.”
    It was nine in the morning, and the apartment reeked of stale drinks from a party the night before. There were cigarette butts in the ashtrays and glasses on the table. The unopened curtains that kept the heavy odor of tobacco from dissipating now evoked the aura of Anabela and the tale she told Rojano about our revolutionary evening.
    The government was on the verge of change. Pundits and soothsayers gossiped obsessively about who would get what cabinet post when the new administration took over on December 1st. Among their incantations: “The political class is through,” “Echeverría’s the new strongman,” and “López Portillo’s a puppy on the technocracy’s leash.” In the midst of all the dire predictions and murky conjecture, I began to look more favorably on the Pizarro matter. It gave me an excuse to see my contact in the Government Security Ministry and avoid getting off on false leads.
    This, like so many others, was a contact I made through René Arteaga, the reporter for
Excelsior.
When I met René Arteaga in 1969, the wounds of the Tlatelolco massacre were still fresh, and I was even fresher at the outset of my career as a police reporter. I was 23 and Arteaga almost 40. He was drinking watery
Cuba libres
(so-called
mahogany Cuba libres
due to their color, which bore a curious resemblance to darkrum) at the La Mundial Bar. He let me sit next to him at the bar.
    â€œSo you run copy?” he said before draining half his first drink of the day in a single swallow.
    Running copy was the entry-level job in the newspaper business. You shuttled stories between the reporters’ typewriters and the copy desk and from the copy desk to the press room.
    â€œNo, sir,” I replied with the pride that came from having insinuated myself into such distinguished company. “I’m a police reporter.”
    â€œThen you’re the remains of a copy boy,” Arteaga said. “You’ve been blooded.”
    He drained the second half of his drink with his second swallow. “It’s how we all begin. In the morgue. And it’s the best way to start. After that nothing scares you. But I’ll tell you the rule. The morgue is a training ground, a stage. Don’t get caught there for more than three years. Don’t pay too much attention to anyone who’s spent a lot of years around blood and corpses if you’re serious about becoming a reporter. Keep your distance. If you stay down there too long, you get jaded. Good reporters can’t be too sensitive, but they have to numb their nerves and control them, not kill them.”
    He added a small splash of Coca Cola to his next
Cuba libre.
    â€œSo it’s a great beat. It’s spawned lots of great reporters, and the public loves it, but there’s one thing you always have to keep in mind.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œDon’t call me sir, damn it.